Architectural Digest: Ah, the City of Light: It’s one of the most famous destinations in the world. Who isn’t familiar with the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, or the Arc du Triomphe? Particularly if you’re an architecture buff! While we all may have our own stories about how Paris has affected us—whether you’ve been there yourself or have only seen it …

New York Times: In her new book, “Flâneuse,” Lauren Elkin expands the concept of the flâneur — that aristocratic bohemian man strolling the city streets, possibly with a top hat or some other touch of the dandy — to include women wanderers from Virginia Woolf to Sophie Calle (one of whose works will be featured in “Person of the Crowd: …

The New York Times: The streets of the Marais are narrow enough in some places that sunlight pierces the shadowy canyons between its soaring Renaissance-era buildings for just a few hours a day. At night the lanes take on a mysterious, medieval air when streetlamps sputter to life, casting a sheen on timeworn turrets, carved doors and stone mansions. Slip …

Paris Vagabond, first published in 1952, is one of the most extraordinary books ever written about that city. It follows in the lineage of great narratives by champion walkers—Louis-Sébastien Mercier’s Le Tableau de Paris (1781–1788), Nicolas-Edme Restif de la Bretonne’s Les Nuits de Paris (1788–1794), Alexandre Privat d’Anglemont’s Paris anecdote (1854), Léon-Paul Fargue’s Le Piéton de Paris (1939), among others—although its focus is more pointed and specific. Had …

Ada Calhoun maps out the history of just three blocks in New York’s Lower East Side in St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street. Not many streets could bear this kind of sustained attention, but these authors have plenty of material. Leon Trotsky, Andy Warhol, and Allen Ginsberg all lived or worked on St. Marks Place. Read …

First taxis rose up against Uber, then hotels challenged Airbnb and now, restaurants in France are taking on meal-sharing sites they believe create unfair competition and could sap jobs. The websites, where hosts offer to cook a meal at their homes for a price of their choosing, are increasingly popular among travelling food-lovers who want to meet locals on top …

After cheeseburgers and lobster rolls, barbecue is what Parisians now crave, part of their ongoing fascination with American comfort food. A spate of American-run barbecue restaurants has opened here recently, and Parisians are enthusiastically tucking into baby back ribs with a side of coleslaw. Read more: American Barbecue in Paris – The New York Times

“The sense of neighborhood has gone, never to return,” the American art critic John Russell wailed in “Paris,” his classic 1975 study of the City of Light. “The one-person shop, the solitary craftsman, the frugal, secret and yet dignified life — all have been lost.” Except, that is, on a street like the Rue des Martyrs. Here, on this narrow, …

While the Right Bank of Paris has seen internationalism and the irrepressible rise of “bobos” (the Parisian form of hipsters) change its landscape in recent years, the Left Bank has been able to preserve the soul of the French capital. Walk through the Latin Quarter’s crooked cobblestone corridors or down the grand plane-tree-lined boulevards of St.-Germain-des-Prés and, more than once, …

Est-ce que je te demande si ta grand-mère fait du vélo? | Mind your own damn business Translates literally as, “Do I ask you if your grandma bikes?” This is a rather funny (though not for the person receiving the insult) and sarcastic way to tell someone to get lost. via 10 idioms only the French understand – Matador Network.

On his first trip to Paris, filmmaker Paul Richardson vowed to capture the city in all its glory. And he did just that, as this impressive time lapse video, called “J’adore Paris” shows. Watch it for yourself. via Beauty of Paris captured in time lapse video – The Local.

Sue Roe’s chronicle of artistic high jinks in modernist Paris comes wrapped in a cover of blushing red, inky black and bilious green. These are the colours in which Picasso painted the Moulin de la Galette, a hilltop windmill in Montmartre that no longer ground flour but instead served as a raffish dance hall. Female mouths are like bleeding wounds, …

David Lebovitz: If you’re coming to Paris, here are some of my favorite places to get something really good to eat. Most aren’t fancy, but are more places where you’ll find a good mix of Parisians with a few visitors as well. Most of them are moderately priced, except where noted. via My Paris | David Lebovitz.

From Pret a Voyager: Recently I wrote a 24 Hours in Paris guide for Design*Sponge that highlights many of my favorite design shops in the 3rd and 10th arrondissements (it’s a more focused guide than the overall D*S Paris Design Guide I wrote a few years ago). And while I teach Map Making on Skillshare, I can’t claim credit for …